Pages

Monday, April 19, 2010

Just when you can forget you're in Egypt

So I've been living in Hurghada just over two months now, and I love it. I love being just down the road (or up the road rather :p) from the beach, and the fresh air, and the overall feeling that you have left the crowded "Egyptianess" of Cairo.

Or so I thought! LOL. Minus the fact that Hurghada is still under construction in a lot of areas, it really is like a Mediterranean beach town. Just two streets down from us is a major road leading down to the main tourist strip Shara Sheraton, Moustafa Kamel. This is one of the few roads that is tarmacced all the way down, and can actually accomodate two way traffic. The rest of the streets around the area are being ripped up down the center to make way for the pipes.

Now, I'm not a construction worker, nor am I an architect. But in my limited experience with development (hahaha) it makes sense to place any pipes, water, gas, whatever, before tarmaccing the road. I'm sure I'm not alone in this mindset.

So keeping this in mind, I would have thought that Moustafa Kamel street had all the pipes placed underneath it already. But some genius in the Hurghada construction business, decided it made more sense to tarmac the road, and then put the pipes underneath it. A big WTF moment. Going out the other night to fetch some fresh veggies, about to walk down Moustafa Kamel, and was met by mountains of dirt, and NO TARMACCED ROAD.

Please, someone explain to me where the logic in this lies. It's so frustrating! WHY, WHY WHY WHY!!!! Needless to say, I've been reminded that I am still in Egypt, and that some decisions here just make no sense. Here's betting that Moustafa Kamel remains a dirt road for the next few years, until someone else in the construction business decides that it would make sense to tarmac it again. Talk about a waste of money....